Film Review: The Green Inferno

Justine is an American college student with a privileged background who joins up with an eco-activist group working out of her college. She joins them on a trip to Peru to stop the destruction of the rain forest by a development company who are pushing indigenous tribes off of their land for the natural gas underneath. Unfortunately for the students, their trip takes a nasty turn when a plane crash drops them right in the middle of the jungle and at the mercy of the primitive tribe they were trying to save.

Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno is a loving homage to the lesser-known sub-genre of Italian cannibal films, and boy is it great. The story and structure match the genre perfectly by starting in New York City before heading into the jungle while the cast are a good mix of likeable kids and arrogant jackasseswho you want to see get eaten. The main highlight of The Green Inferno are the movie’s practical gore effects. While I recall seeing the names of KNB’s Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger in the opening credits, they don’t seem to be credited on the film’s IMDB page, but the second half of the movie is chock full of their work. While the films before The Green Inferno were known for being disgusting, Roth’s movie reaches the top tier of the genre in that respect as The Green Inferno contains almost every body part being lopped off and eaten. The film also has beautiful photography, but I feel that the movie suffers slightly from being shot digitally because it is an homage to a genre that is generally well regarded for its lush 35mm photography and juxtaposing of beautiful images with disturbing ones.

My only real complaints about the film are relatively minor in that one scene has some CGI that stands out for the wrong reasons while I believe that the end of the film could have been wrapped up a bit quicker without the usual last-minute jump scares.

Overall I highly recommend that any fans of horror, jungle adventures, or gory disturbing films should get to a theater and see The Green Inferno as soon as possible. It isn’t often that a film of this nature gets a mainstream release so support it while you can, especially if you are a fan of the sub-genre as there are some fun references to other cannibal films and it was an added treat to hear some of rokOPERA’s tribute score for Cannibal Ferox in the credits. And if you enjoy the movie and are unfamiliar with the Italian cannibal sub-genre, then stick around during the credits as Roth has included a list of the landmark films in the genre for you to seek out.